Eva Perón

May 7, 1919 – July 26, 1952

First Lady of Argentina (1946-1952), wife of Juan Perón, who championed workers and women's suffrage and became a political icon.

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Biography

María Eva Duarte was born in rural Buenos Aires province in 1919 and grew up in poverty in Junín after her father returned to his legal family. At fifteen she moved to Buenos Aires to work as a stage, radio and film actress. In January 1944 she met Colonel Juan Perón at a benefit for earthquake victims, and they married in October 1945.

When Perón became president in 1946 she became first lady and quickly built a power base among the trade unions, speaking for workers' rights. In 1947 she toured Europe, meeting Francisco Franco and Pope Pius XII. She founded and ran the Eva Perón Foundation, a charity that became central to her popularity, campaigned for women's suffrage, which Law 13,010 established, and in 1949 founded the Female Peronist Party, the country's first large women's party.

In 1951 the unions rallied behind her bid to become vice president, but opposition from the military and the upper classes and her failing health led her to withdraw. Weeks before her death from cancer in July 1952, at 33, Congress named her 'Spiritual Leader of the Nation', and she received a state funeral. She remains a defining figure of Peronism.